Sometimes Happy Hour Takes All Day
by JPalmerGirl
Summary: David Healy was five when he was diagnosed with cancer. He was still five when he started living life again. This is how the series would've gone if David was a cancer patient. Life has ups and it has downs, sometimes Happy Hour just takes all day.


Kevin Healy was never called Kevin. He was always called David, ever since he was five years old. That was the year that he first got sick. He'd always been puny and small, his older brother Mark used to make fun of his size all the time. Then, when he got sick, the name 'David' just kind of appeared. He assumed it was from the Bible story, David and Goliath. It was kind of inspiring, that if little David could beat down a giant in the story with nothing more than a simple tunic, a shepherd's staff, a sling and a pouch full of stones... then maybe, just maybe, the youngest Healy boy could beat the cancer that had plagued him for so very long. Mesenchymal Chondrosarcoma, that was the name for his cancer. It was a cancer of the cartilage and tends to appear more commonly in young people because their bones are still forming and they have cartilage that has not yet mineralized into bone. Those were the same lines that he would parrot off to anybody who asked. No words could really express the realization of waking up in bed and being seized in the throes of such intense pelvic pain that you wet yourself without noticing or caring. He couldn't explain to them, the feeling of projectile vomiting for eleven hours straight or having a long needle shoved in your lilac-crest to extract bone marrow from your hips. He couldn't explain...so why bother trying?

He went into remission for the first time when he was seven, but just a year and a half later he woke up vomiting up blood and wracked with intense pain in his pelvic area. The cancer had relapsed right under their noses. It was Mark who found him and rushed him to the hospital, he didn't have a license yet, he was only fourteen but David was pretty sure that nobody cared. They got his cancer in remission for the second time when he was twelve, it relapsed just six months later. When he was fourteen he went into remission again, but it lasted barely three weeks before he relapsed. It was as if the cancer never left. Now at fifteen, he was in the throes of a new chemo regimen, Mark was giving him a steady stream of platelets whenever he could. Something that David really appreciated, but he didn't appreciate getting dropped off at some stranger's house after his chemo session. Mark just shoved a pink bucket into his hands and told him that he had to watch Mark's girlfriend's little brother. His girlfriend was a really pretty girl, short blond hair and a perky smile, but David wasn't really interested in girls like her.

David just settled himself on the couch, afghan and bucket in tow as he flopped across it. Only to be rudely awakened, moments later by a little kid with black hair in a bowler cut and an annoying scowl. The teen had to stifle a laugh, this kid looked so much like Mark that it was laughable. When they were little and waiting in Oncology waiting areas got too boring, both he and his big brother would stomp over to a glove box, taking out four or five at a time just to blow them up and bat them back and forth. They would play a variant game of volleyball, one where instead of a ball, five coxcomb balloons would fill the arena. They tried to make sure that none of the blow-up balloons ever touched the ground. Mark usually won, only because he was bigger, faster and healthier. But David still gave him a fair run for his money.

"Hey, are you even awake? You sick or something?"

The kid's voice was so irritating that David had to resist the urge to tuck a pillow over his ears. Did the kid really not realize that he was sick? That he was bald as a baby's behind, with no eyebrows or eyelashes to speak of? Hmm...maybe this kid was as dull as Mark. Well, they might as well do something before the chemo really hits him. He snatched up the remote and chucked it at the kid who caught it in well practiced fingers.

"Yeah I'm sick, wanna watch TV?"

David shuffled over a bit, allowing the kid access to about half of the couch. The half the boy promptly sat in and turned the TV on to some sport's channel that neither of them were actually going to watch. The teen knew that he was going to be neutropenic after the chemo and that he should put on the crumpled surgical mask in his jeans pocket but he really doesn't want to bother, so he doesn't. They sat in silence for a few moments, letting David sink into another memory. He'd come home from school with a stomach ache, thinking nothing of it he'd gone to his room. Only to wake up from a short nap with the familiar sharp pain in his pelvic area. He moaned and cried silently, the sheets and pillowcase sticking to his face with all the damp tears that he cries. That was how Mark found him, he was always the unlucky one to go searching for him first and find him in the throes of a medical emergency. As soon as Mark was standing in the doorframe, David leaned over the side of the bed and spewed blood and bile out of his mouth and nose. It horrified his older brother, who screamed in utter terror. David realized that he was trembling, the memory still so sharp and vivid in his mind.

"What are you sick with?"

It's not as if the kid's question comes as a surprise, because it doesn't. It's just the way he asks that's surprising. There's no pity, no patronizing tone, he's just curious, not even looking at David as he asks the question. Maybe afraid to offend him? Ha! If people had cared about that long ago, he wouldn't have learned to have some semblance of a back-bone. He makes a twisted face and says in a mock creepy voice.

"Ever heard of cancer?"

"You have cancer? But you're not old."

David smiled at that, at least the kid wasn't comparing him to some old fart who had cancer, like someone's grandpa or something. The kid begins to flick through channels like a fiend as David yanked himself into a sitting position, tugging the itchy ski cap off his bald head. When he did so, the kid's eyes practically bugged out to the size of sauce pans and he gasped loudly. David did snicker that time, though when he tried to stifle it, it came out in a choking noise.

"I'm D.J Conner by the way."

"Kevin Healy, but you can call me David."

D.J and David spend the next half hour talking, D.J told the teen about his older sisters, Becky and Darlene and about their parents. By the end of D.J's speech, David is ready to wet himself at the thought of Mrs. Conner coming home to find him, a stranger, on her couch. Though, technically he was eventually going to be her son-in-law, through Mark, so he did have some jurisdiction to be there. Then, the chemo began to hit, his stomach churning and his head spinning as he threw his head into the bucket to vomit noisily, over and over and over again. Until both he and his stomach know that there is nothing left, yet the heaves come anyway. That's when the bile came, hot and sourly acidic as it spewed out past his chapped lips and sore, engorged throat. D.J ran to his bedroom, just as David told him to do when things got bad and the tremors came. He ended up shivering and shaking, vomiting at intervals on the couch of a family that he barely knew. Just wonderful. He just about broke out in a cold sweat when he heard the back door open and a partially nasal sounding voice practically echo around the house.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Kev..in..."

He slurred through chapped lips as he looked blearily up at the larger woman who was peering down at him like he was some kind of science experiment gone bad. Her dark hair was piled up on her head in a small tufty ponytail, it was all that David could stare at as he looked at her, hugging his puke bucket to his chest.

"Kevin, who?"

"Kevin Healy...'m Mark's brother."

He whispered, voice hoarse as if that explained everything, even though he knew that it hadn't. Though it really wasn't his fault that Mark had just left him there to rot and watch D.J. The teen registered dimly that D.J had left the TV on, but he truly couldn't bring himself to care. The woman did seem to care though, as she bent over David in concern for his well-being. He had to resist the overwhelming urge to puke on her shoes.

"Are you okay? What're you doing here?"

"Not sure...Mark and Becky left me here after chemo...I think it was to watch D.J."

"Where is D.J?"

"Sent him to bed when the chemo really hit me."

As if to emphasis his point, the young man threw his head forwards and puked noisily into the innards of his bucket. More and more bile spewing out past his lips and scorching the insides of his nose like they were on fire. The woman reached out a tentative hand to rub small circles on his back as he vomited. She was chanting something to him, but he was too out of it to really hear it. Paying more attention to the contents of his stomach that were filling the bucket than to the kind woman who was trying to comfort him. He thought her chant was something like, 'Better out than in, kiddo.' But he could never be quite sure. That was when the door opened and admitted a young teen girl, maybe around his age with long wild black curls. He recognized her instantly. She was Darlene, that girl he spent detention with one day.

"I'm home. Woah, I know you. You're a sophomore, right? Are you okay?"

David gave her a half-hearted smile as he raised his head from where it had been buried inside his bucket. Darlene was smiling at him, that alone was enough to make his cheeks flush red, the same color that the tips of his ears were turning. He forced himself to sit up and gave her a real grin. "Yeah, I'm good. Just reaching the tail-end of some chemo-cocktails. Everybody loves Happy Hour."

"Sounds cool. You hang out with Dave Malone and those guys? I think I've seen you around."

"Yeah, I do. When I'm at school that is, Happy Hour lasts all day sometimes. I'm Kevin...but you can call me David."

He saw a flash of something in her eyes, but he couldn't be sure of what it was...it was gone before he could really see. She shook the hand that he proffered and he was surprised when she didn't flinch at the hardened skin and scars from graft-versus-host disease. That made a genuine smile come to his face.

"I'm Darlene."

"I know, I met you in detention once."

"Yeah I thought I saw you there, but I wasn't sure if you noticed me."

"I'm pretty sure everybody noticed me, but you would be pretty hard to overlook."

She smiled and ran a hand through her dark curls, tossing them out of the way like a small breeze might've done at one time. He smiled softly and it felt like his face was on fire and it wasn't from the chemo or from an MRI this time. It was from love or at least a crush. "I like your hair, it's...so totally out of control." She laughed at his remark then, making a pointed stare at his gleaming bald head. "I like your lack of." That comment made David smile, it was like his entire body was glowing.

"Do you have detention tomorrow?"

"I'm not sure yet."

They managed to sit down together on the couch for a moment, David trying to keep his puke bucket as far away from her as possible as they both listened to her parents talk from across the room. The father spoke first. "Darlene's got a little friend."

"His name's Kevin. He's Mark's little brother." At the sound of his wife's comment, Mr. Conners practically lunged towards him. Tugging him off the couch, puke pail in hand and he dragged him out the front door, his only answer to the situation being..."Here kid, let me give you a ride home."


End file.
